


I'm Afraid Old Habits Die Hard, My Dear (Or: The Demon Crowley Discovers that He's Gone Much More Native Than He Thought)

by AshCommaMan



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: /slaps roof of fic/this bad boy can fit so many fucking headcanons in it, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Genderfluid Crowley, Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, aziraphale can be nasty, crowley is dramatic, i struggled so fucking hard with the html i am but a simple gay T_T, like. just so many footnotes. i hope terry pratchett would be proud, overzealous use of footnotes, spoilers for tv show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 06:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19223497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshCommaMan/pseuds/AshCommaMan
Summary: Oh forSatan’ssake!“You’ve got to — you’ve got—” he stuttered through a few more times, trying to get the words out when his lips were most certainly working against him and he was running out of time because he was quickly losing all courage. “You’ve got to stop.”“Stop what, dear?”“Stop being so — you!”In which a demon is forced to share his feelings, and an angel must come to terms with what he feels in return.





	I'm Afraid Old Habits Die Hard, My Dear (Or: The Demon Crowley Discovers that He's Gone Much More Native Than He Thought)

**Author's Note:**

> I had to wrestle with the HTML so fucking hard and then had to find a workaround. So, to explain: the footnotes are a link to discord screenshots of the footnotes. I couldn't make it open in a new tab, so be aware of that (on mobile if you hold-tap on the link it should give u the option to open in a new tab/window, same deal on desktop just with right click). I _promise_ I'm not trying to install malware to your shit, I don't even know how to fucking do that lol. If you don't trust a random fanfic author on the internet (why should you tbh) the footnotes are at the bottom too, it'll just be tougher on you to find them.  
> Let me know if you have any issues or if anything breaks!  
> (Oh, and if you want something a little more angsty, my friend and RP partner Sydni wrote one that you can read here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19222474#ref2 )

“Crowley, are you wearing a skirt?”

If he didn’t know better, he would have thought Newton sounded rather scandalized.

“‘Course I’m wearing a skirt,” he retorted. He shoved his hands into the folds and held them out. “And it’s even got pockets, look!”

“But you—”

Crowley slithered over and slung an arm around the human’s shoulders. “Former Witchfinder Private Pulsifer, there is something you need to know about me. I don’t give a _fuck_ about whether the clothes I wear were made for ‘men’ or for ‘women,’ because I _rock_ everything.”[[1]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589360491780898818/unknown.png)

 

There were three things that, as a group, humans did that angels did not (with one notable exception): dance, sin, and care about gender.

There were three things that, as a group, humans did that demons did not (again, with one notable exception): love, good deeds, and care about gender.

Therefore, angels and demons shared a single similarity simply because they did _not_ share it with humans (besides the obvious physiological similarities; that should go without saying): any thought contributed at all to gender.

So, in this way, Crowley supposed he _had_ gone a bit, well, native. He found that he _did_ care about gender, though not in the way most humans did. And he _didn’t_ care about gender, in a way that most demons didn’t.

He liked the term _genderfluid_. At the time of discovery, Crowley had thought the label was a bit on-the-nose. But over time he had grown to be rather fond of it. After all, it was a word to describe six-thousand years of vague discomfort and confusion.

 

Speaking of confusion: Aziraphale.

His only friend whom he happened to be completely, unfortunately, and infuriatingly in love with.

Oh yes, just another way Crowley didn’t fit in with demons any more than he did angels. Or humans, for that matter. He existed in his own caste of creature. He, however much it might anger him, was a demon who was capable of love.

Great bouts of it that sometimes almost knocked the wind out of him. When Aziraphale smiled, or began animatedly talking about his books, or made one of those little quips about him being the only thing standing between Crowley and the whole world, it felt like everything inside of him deflated and rushed out.

It had been, by Crowley’s count, two months since the armageddon-that-almost-was, and over that time, while he and Aziraphale were certainly much closer than they had ever been, the angel had hardly called him. It seemed as though after their dinner at the Ritz, something unspoken had passed between them. Aziraphale stopped taking his calls, stopped asking him to lunch, stopped greeting him the same way when he showed up at the bookshop; he was avoiding him, and it made Crowley’s chest ache.

No, not avoiding; that seemed too strong. He didn’t have a word for it, but he was certainly _something_ -ing him.

Crowley spent that time, for the most part, sulking about his flat and screaming obscenities at his plants. How else was he expected to process complex and upsetting negative emotions?

Finally, it got to be too much to bear; it took him two days, but he finally came to a conclusion. There was _no way_ he could be expected to go on like this. It was torture. It was wrong.

No matter what Aziraphale thought or felt in return, he _had_ to tell him.

He was in the middle of stalking to his phone where it had sat absolutely motionless for three days, with every intention of picking it up, calling Aziraphale, and _demanding_ that he meet him for lunch, when a sudden thought pulled him short. _What if he was about to ruin six thousand years of friendship?_

Doubt was a human thing, he knew it. That was part of why demons and angels were so fucking annoying. They were sure of everything they did; they never doubted or questioned. But he had been around humans too long, perhaps, and had developed the nasty habit of second-guessing himself.

So there he stood, having a staring contest with his mobile phone that he _would_ win, trying to decide what to do.

His blood boiled, his brows knitted together, his golden eyes narrowed. Finally, just as he was about to destroy the phone in a fit of rage, an entirely different ringing broke the silence: his landline.[[2]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589360828533309441/unknown.png)

He practically vaulted over the desk to the other side, snatching up the phone. “Hello?” he asked. He realized that his voice was _far_ too urgent and straightened before relaxing and splaying out over the desk, one elbow propped underneath him.

“Oh, Crowley, I’m glad I caught you at home.”

 _Fuck_. Even the sound of his fucking voice was enough to send Crowley into a fit of demonic rage.

“Oh, angel!” he said, forcing himself to ignore just how _gutted_ he felt. “I was just about to call you up! What’s crack-a-lackin’?”

There was a pause, presumably while Aziraphale made one of his maddeningly sweet faces. “Well, I was going to see if you wanted to have lunch with me.”

“Of course! Always! Name the time and place. What high-end restaurant are we crashing today?”

Vaguely, somewhere, in the back of his mind, Crowley was screaming incomprehensibly.

He was _not_ acting normal, and he was far too aware of it. Was he… nervous? That was new.[[3]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589361332185202698/unknown.png)

“Well, I was actually thinking that you could come over to the shop. I’ve been meaning to get back into cooking.”

Crowley snorted. “Have we forgotten why you stopped the last time, angel?”

Aziraphale scoffed. “Well, really. I don’t—”

“It was something like… it was far too much effort to make anything worth eating?”

“Now, Crowley, there’s no need for this.”

“Oh, hush angel, I’m only teasing you. I’ll be over in a half an hour.”

“Wonderful! I’ll see you.”

“ _Ciao_.”

He hung up.

No sooner had the receiver touched the dock than Crowley started screaming.

He needed to kill something.

Well, no, not kill.

He needed to do _something_ violent.

Like yell at his plants.

He stalked into the plant room, and he heard the leaves of the ferns quaking in fear.

He looked around at them all, searching for the smallest blemish, the littlest black spot or root-rot or a leaf that just _wasn’t_ cutting it.

But there was _nothing_ . For _Satan’s sake_ , the one time he wanted his plants to disappoint him, and he had terrified them to perfection just by walking into the room.

So instead, he started talking to himself.

There were a lot of complaints, largely directed towards Aziraphale and just how fucking disarming he was. He had been dealing with this horrible, stupid little crush for _2,011_ years! He had had lunch with Aziraphale hundreds of times. It was one of the only things they did, really. This was just another lunch!

He was far, far too introspective at the moment to be able to treat this like “just another lunch.”

He remembered the night, in 1953, in the club outside of Dublin.

That was when it had all gone wrong, of course. He had made the horrible, stupid decision of trying, _trying_ to talk to Aziraphale about his… _feelings_ , but trying to talk to Aziraphale about anything that actually mattered was all but impossible.

He hadn’t been able to say it in so many concise words, since it was all but impossible for demons to say the words “I love you,”[[4]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589361691481997312/unknown.png) but he had gotten his point across accurately enough that it had managed to scare Aziraphale off for nearly twenty years.

Once he had managed to get the feelings out, Aziraphale had left in a hurry — knocking over chairs as he went — and promptly ignored him for several days. When he had finally gotten a hold of him again, the angel had said some rather cruel things, as he was wont to do when Crowley displeased him.

And that, of course, resulted in Crowley sleeping all of the fifties and most of the sixties away.

The first time Aziraphale spoke to him after that night had been when he had given him the holy water. It seemed as if he had been trying to patch things up, a kind of apology for how he had behaved.

At the time, Crowley had just been relieved to have his friend back. Looking back on it later, he knew that it wasn’t really enough, but he could never stay angry at Aziraphale for long. It just wasn’t in his personality. Everything else was worth his ire, his cynicism, his violence, but not his angel.

 

Crowley arrived, as promised, to Aziraphale’s bookshop a half hour later. As usual, there were a few people milling about, but they weren’t likely to buy anything. The angel’s exorbitant prices along with a passive, low-intensity miracle kept customers from ever seriously considering purchasing a book, unless they were _really_ committed.

The little bell dinged above his head and Aziraphale came bustling out of his backroom. “Good afternoon,” he said.

Crowley returned the greeting with a quick flick of his hand.

Aziraphale turned to address the humans in the store. “If you all would be so kind as to hurry along, I need to close for the afternoon.”

He raised his eyebrows. The whole afternoon?

Grumbling and looking rather put-out, they quickly left and the bookshop was plunged into silence.

“Well, now that that’s taken care of,” he said, turning and gesturing for him to lead the way.

Crowley went up the stairs into the small flat that lived above the bookshop.

Really, it wasn't so much a flat as an extra space to keep all his extra books, as well as the ones from his private collection.

It had many of the trappings of a flat, though, like a stove (which saw use only when Aziraphale felt the need to cook rather than dine out, like today), and a table (which was covered with books which were probably older than this building), a bathroom (which was so unused that books had piled themselves in front of the door), and a bedroom (which stood empty, as Aziraphale had never had need for a bed — well, as empty as anything else in the place was;t, too, was covered in books). The living room was the main space, with a plush couch and several chairs and bookshelves all with their own distinct lighting. Some were even devoted to specific genres or moods.

Despite the fact that there were books quite literally everywhere, the place was actually very clean; all the tomes were stacked in neat piles, and he knew exactly where everything was. The floor was spotless, and it was a very homey place. Like what one might think of when one thought of one's grandmother's house in one's youth.

The smells of cooking came from the kitchen. Although Crowley didn’t have the same passion for eating as Aziraphale did — he preferred to sleep or drink — he wasn’t _opposed_ to the practice, and he knew that the angel liked spending time with him, so he couldn’t really complain, no matter what they did.

“What’s for lunch?” He watched as Aziraphale bustled into the kitchen. He slung his arm across the back of the couch, adjusting his glasses with the other one.

“I figured, with the weather being what it is,”[[5]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589361888454770688/unknown.png) he said as he busied himself in there, “a nice soup might be good. I baked bread last night, and I recently found a very nice _Piedmont_ in my cellar last week, and I figured you would want to try it.”[[6]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589361986350088242/unknown.png)

“That sounds _lovely_ , angel.” Crowley supposed that he would humor his friend and eat. They had long-since gotten used to their difference in tastes, and while Aziraphale likely wouldn’t be offended if he didn’t partake in what he had fixed for them, it would make him happy if he _did_ , and a surprising amount of thought was contributed to making Aziraphale happy nowadays.

He sat down at the table sitting pleasantly in the center of the room and leaned out, spreading his legs out under the table and reclining. He draped himself over every surface he could.[[7]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589362152234680330/unknown.png)

He watched as Aziraphale put the finishing touches on the soup, the whole world that usual tinted shade while he wore his sunglasses. Sometimes he took them off around Aziraphale, but he felt far too vulnerable and nervous today to do something like that.[[8]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589362270379966464/unknown.png)

“After lunch, why don’t we have drinks?” he suggested after a minute of silence. Really, he felt as though he might burst into flame if he didn’t get some release from the horrible, stark reality he had to exist in. He wanted the fuzziness, the giggliness, the ease that being drunk gave him. Plus, he thought Aziraphale was adorable when he was drunk.

“That sounds fine, dear,” he replied, not turning to look at him. “I have a few bottles of unicum downstairs we could probably open.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows at him. “You bought _unicum_?”

“Well…” He turned and looked over his shoulder with something that might just resemble mischief. “I bought _one_ bottle.”

“Oh, _angel_ ,” he said, throwing his head back as he laughed.

“Well, what am I expected to do? I merely parted it from someone who acquired it through dishonest means.”

“You stole it from a thief?”

“Well. From the mob. Several years back.”

Another sharp laugh. “You are the _worst_ , d’you know that?”

The angel scoffed. “Well, really, Crowley. One can’t be expected to _buy_ as much as the two of us would need. It’s _far_ too expensive.”

“Oh I bet your superiors up at Head Office would _love_ to hear all about you stealing alcohol, you _bad, bad angel._ ”

“Hmph.”

 

Crowley had to admit. The soup hadn’t been _all that bad_. He still didn’t understand why Aziraphale thought food was so amazing though.

Now, of course, the two of them were lazing in the living room of Aziraphale’s flat, two bottles of unicum down. Crowley was lounging, full-bodied, across the tartan sofa. His feet were dangling off the back, shoeless, tracing patterns on the wall with his toes.

Aziraphale was pacing back and forth, going off about something to do with Shakespeare and how inaccurate the folios all were and wishing he had written everything down when he had been there.

Crowley wasn’t really listening. He was deep in thought, however muddled those thoughts might be.

He had started this day absolutely determined to tell the angel how he felt, to try that conversation again and hope that it went better than it had the first time around. Now, of course, faced with the actual opportunity, he — like most people — found himself absolutely petrified. Love makes cowards of us all, it seems.

“Angel, angel,” he said, sitting up slowly and cutting Aziraphale off in the middle of a sentence.

He stopped abruptly mid-stride and turned to him. “Yes, Crowley?”

He waved his arm. “Sit — sit down. You’re making me bloody nervous walking around like that.”

Aziraphale crossed the room, but tripped on a set of books that had gotten moved at some point through the night.

Time seemed to slow down as Crowley watched him fly through the air and land squarely on the sofa — effectively crushing him.

He yelped, going rigid. “Asssz _iraphale_!”  
The angel quickly rolled off of him and landed unceremoniously on the floor. “Ooh, look at me — clumsy!” he managed through breathless giggles.

Crowley stood up and rolled his eyes. “Nice one.” He straightened his jacket and readjusted his glasses to hide his red face.

Aziraphale sat up on the floor, leaning against the couch. “Sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to land on you.”

He sighed and sat back down. “No, ‘course not.”

A moment of silence passed between them. Well, relative silence; Aziraphale was still giggling like a child on nitrous oxide.

Oh for _Satan’s sake!_

“You’ve got to — you’ve got—” he stuttered through a few more times, trying to get the words out when his lips were most certainly working against him and he was running out of time because he was quickly losing all courage. “You’ve got to stop.”

“Stop what, dear?”

“Stop being so — you!”

Aziraphale cocked his head at him, blue eyes squinted up. “What’s wrong with being me?”

He sputtered unintelligibly again, going through almost every vowel combination in the English language — and a few in Hebrew — before he managed to get the words out. “You’re just — you’re so fucking adorable and every time you _bloody_ do something like that you make me want to kiss you and that’s not going to bloody happen so all you do is make me _bloody miserable_!”

He blinked. There was deathly silence.

Crowley felt a scratching in his throat, felt burning behind his eyes, and he found himself cursing the fact that demons couldn’t cry. He took off his glasses and flung them aside into one of the plush armchairs angrily.

He stood up and crossed the room on shaky legs. There, he had said it, and the moment the words were out he regretted them. This was going to be just like 1953. He was stupid to think that averting the apocalypse had changed anything. Aziraphale was always too concerned about what the angels would think, even now, when the angels likely wanted him dead. He would never understand that they didn’t have sides. All they had was each other.

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, about ready to just leave the bloody flat and sleep the next couple of centuries away.

“Crowley…”

“What?!”

“You’re drunk.”

“Yeah, no fucking shit,” he snapped, whirling to send a glare at him.

“I’m saying I think we should sober up.”  
“I don’t want to,” he replied, sounding very much like a five-year-old who was overdue for his nap.

“I’m not having this conversation while I’m intoxicated.”

“Who said there was going to be a conversation?”

“I did.” He shut his eyes and grimaced. His share of the alcohol replenished itself in the bottles.

He stood, dusting his shirt off. “Now then. Would you care to explain?”

“Don’t fucking condescend to me, Aziraphale. Don’t you fucking dare.”

He rolled his eyes. “I cannot believe you. You drop something like that and suddenly _I’m_ the villain here? This is exactly why Dublin went the way it did.”

Almost faster than he himself was aware of it, Crowley sprang across the room, looking very much like a snake striking. He stepped easily up onto the coffee table and then back down, towering over Aziraphale. “ _I’m_ to blame for Dublin?” he hissed. “Don’t talk to _me_ about that, Aziraphale. I left my heart in Dublin because of you. You don’t get to blame me for not having one.”

Aziraphale seemed almost to cower under the weight of his stare. He wasn’t afraid of Crowley, he never had been; but it was rare that he reacted so aggressively to him. Usually violence was reserved for houseplants.

“I think you need to calm down,” he whispered, staring directly into his eyes and rendering him completely defenseless.

Jesus Christ, this was exactly why Crowley always wore the sunglasses; the angel could just disarm him by looking at him with all that sincerity.

He turned and stalked back towards the kitchen, arms up in the air. “Oh yes, _I_ need to calm down! It’s always _Crowley’s_ fault for being so fucking hysterical! Never good, _perfect_ Aziraphale!”

“Crowley.” His voice was deadly calm, which always meant that he was close to snapping. “Crowley, I think you should leave.”

“Yes, perhaps I should,” he retorted. With that, he left the flat, making sure to slam the door of the bookshop. He was so angry he hadn’t even realized he left his sunglasses until he was three miles away.

 

They didn’t speak to one another for two months. For those full two months, Crowley was, effectively, in mourning. Once he had gone home and sobered up, he had what approximates to a temper tantrum. The plants were never the same again.

He was so thoroughly convinced that he had ruined his and Aziraphale’s friendship, permanently this time.[[9]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589362473769893898/unknown.png)

He figured that that one explosive argument was the last hurrah of their friendship; Aziraphale, even if he did forgive him, was too stubborn to pick up the phone first, and Crowley wasn’t about to overstep any boundaries and assume it was alright.

So when Crowley was in the middle of a rather profound high and the phone rang, a series of emotions suddenly cascaded over him.

For a moment, he was tempted to let it go to voicemail. After all, he was the cool one. He should be playing hard to get, making Aziraphale feel bad for driving him away.[[10]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589362553197690881/unknown.png)

But he wasn’t nearly as strong-willed high, and so he pulled himself from his place draped around his Evil Triumphing Good statue and stalked down the hall.

“Hello?” he asked. Luckily, given the shoddy state of his brain, he didn’t have to try too hard to sound despondent and apathetic.

Judging from the silence on the other end, Aziraphale had been hoping he wouldn’t pick up. “Hello, Crowley.”

“What do you want, Aziraphale?”

“Well. I was thinking… it’s been a while, since we’ve talked. And perhaps I could tempt you to some dinner.”

He laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh, but it managed to worm its way out of his throat before he could stop it.

Silence. Was he hallucinating, or could he actually _feel_ the angel’s heart breaking.

“Sure, Az, dinner sounds fine. Where and when?”

“I was thinking that little Italian place not far from your flat. You know the one?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know it.”

“I’ll see you at six then.” His voice was flat, unemotional. To Crowley, that betrayed more than anything else. He sounded… resigned.

He hung up, unable to even summon the words to say goodbye.

What was he walking into?

 

When six came around, Crowley made ready to go. He planned to leave just a little bit after six, in order to ensure he wouldn’t show up on time.[[11]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589362683112062987/unknown.png)

He found Aziraphale already inside, hands folded neatly in front of him, looking incredibly nervous.[[12]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589362764443680779/unknown.png)

He came over and slid into the booth. “Hey there,” he said.

“Oh!” Aziraphale looked up at him, face fraught with that same nervousness. “I’m glad you came.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He leaned his cheek into his hand. No matter what he thought or felt, no matter how much his whole being still ached whenever he thought about the way Aziraphale had looked at him, he refused to show it.

“Well… after our argument, I wasn’t sure if you wanted to have anything to do with me.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows. “Angel. I’ve known you for over six thousand years. I’ve heard much worse from you. It’ll take more than some _unkind words_ to scare me off.”

“Well. Regardless. It was uncalled for.”

It was always uncalled for. The amount of times Aziraphale had said something rude to him and _not_ apologized were almost too numerous to count. But he wasn’t going to bring that up right then when they were in the middle of something good.

“That’s alright.”

He ordered a glass of wine and leaned back, watching the angel through his sunglasses.

There was a long silence. Aziraphale avoided his gaze, watching pretty much anything other than Crowley’s face. The demon just watched him, waiting for something to happen.

Finally, he couldn’t handle it anymore. If they sat in silence for much longer, he knew they would pass the threshold and the pain would become permanent. “So what’s the real reason you called me here, angel? If you had wanted to apologize, you could’ve just called me.”

Some of the color drained from his face. Evidently he had picked up on something he wasn’t meant to.

“Well… I thought that perhaps we should talk.”

“About?” It was crucial to keep his cool, even as that painful fluttering bounced its way across his chest.

“About… what you said. At my flat.”

He nodded. “Right. Well, lay it on me. Do I still ‘go too fast’? Is it still expressly forbidden in the very fabrics of our natures?” He leaned forward. “Let’s face it, angel. No matter how much you insist to me that it’s _wrong_ and _impossible_ , no matter how little you feel for me in return, it’s not going to change things.”

“I never said that’s what I wanted to say,” he whispered. His voice was strangled, his eyes welling up with tears.

Everything hard thing in Crowley’s body softened at the sight.

“Then what did you want to say?” he asked, his own voice reluctant to come out.

Aziraphale sat back and stared up at the ceiling, willing the tears away. “I just — I’ve been confused, is all. For… a long time. Too long.”

Crowley gave a little bit of a half laugh, despite himself. He had been in love with Aziraphale since fucking 41 A.D. How long was too long for him?

“What has you so confused, angel?” he asked, unable to keep the venom from his voice. Old snake habits, he supposed. He couldn’t help but be cynical.

“What do you think, Crowley?” he retorted. “Even our friendship is among one of the highest forms of disobedience. The _letters_ I would get—”

“ _Letters_?!” he demanded, lurching forward. His face was twisted into a delirious, rueful grin. “You’re afraid of bloody letters from your highfalutin’ superiors?”

Aziraphale leveled a look at him that was almost enough to wither a plant. Very impressive.

He put his hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright. Sorry I said anything.” He waved his hand to the side. “Please, continue.”

He took another breath. “It’s been difficult. You know how hard it is for me to… change my mind about things.”

“That’s a rather _delicate_ way to put it. I’d call you stubborn, but…”

“Now _really,_ Crowley, if I had wanted to deal with childish _petulance,_ I would’ve invited Adam and his friends to dinner. I’m trying to be genuine here and explain myself!”

“Right, right. Sorry, I’ll shut up.”

“ _Thank you_. Now. While I’ve had certain… feelings for you for quite some time, I have, until rather recently — very recently — I haven’t really given them much thought, because I don’t think it would ever be possible.”

Crowley frowned as the tiny fire of hope that had flickered to life sputtered and promptly died out by the time that sentence was over. “Why not?” he asked, his voice entirely too sad and vulnerable for his tastes.

“Well, I don’t think my side would be very approving of my being in a relationship with _anyone_ , least of all a — _demon_.”

Crowley stuttered, sounding almost like he was going to start laughing — or maybe crying, if that were possible. The hurt, the heartbreak, the sadness that he thought he knew better than to feel quickly alchemized to anger, and he wanted to lash out.[[13]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589362962314035222/unknown.png)

“ _Your side_ ?” he sputtered, after a long moment of incomprehensible noises. “How many times do I need to tell you?” He pitched forward again, his eyes narrowed in a scowl. “We don’t _have_ sides anymore. All we’ve got is each other. You’re not fucking beholden to them anymore. You’re your own fucking person now, Aziraphale.”

He wasn’t angry at the angel, necessarily — though he would be lying if he said he wasn’t frustrated by this conversation. Mostly, he was angry at Heaven, at the angels who had put all these ideas into Aziraphale’s head. He had seen how they spoke to him while he had been in Heaven. It was cruel, it was awful — he got the same treatment from demons, but they were _demons_ , that was to be expected. The angels were supposed to be the heavenly ones. He was glad that Aziraphale hadn’t been there to hear Gabriel.

Aziraphale sighed heavily, shaking his head and smiling in the most heartbreaking way. “I’m afraid old habits die hard, my dear,” he whispered.

Slowly, Crowley’s hand slithered across the table and wrapped itself around Aziraphale’s. The touch was light, almost reluctant, and loose enough that the angel could pull away if he wanted to.

“That’s fine,” he said quietly. “I’ll wait as long as you need.”

Aziraphale looked down at their hands, his thumb tracing over Crowley’s knuckle.

“Hopefully I won’t keep you waiting for long.”

There was silence then. And Crowley had always hated silence. He liked quiet, well enough — Hell had always been rowdy and loud and it was impossible to hear oneself think — but this wasn’t a comfortable type of silence. This was the type of silence that drove a wedge between them and threatened to pull them apart forever. He couldn’t stand to let it go on.

“D’you… would you want to — stay at my place?” he asked. It was an offer that he made often enough, but there was more to it, now.

Obviously, even Aziraphale picked up on that, because his head jerked up and his face somehow paled and reddened at the same time.

He held his hand up — the one that wasn’t currently occupied by the angel’s. “Not in any sort of way. Just… you always seem kinda lonely. In your big old bookshop all alone.”

He smiled and his shoulders seemed to relax. “Well, if that’s all.”[[14]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589363147501076482/unknown.png)

Aziraphale’s food arrived shortly after, and the meal was passed in silence — a comfortable silence now. Crowley merely watched his angel eat affectionately.

As they left and got into the Bentley, Aziraphale turned to him. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been in your flat before.”

Crowley looked over at him, eyebrows raised. “You haven’t?” he asked. “I’ve had that flat for twenty-three years and you’ve _never_ been inside it?”

“No, I don’t think I have.”

“Hm. Welp, it’ll be an experience for you, surely.”

The look Aziraphale sent him would probably have been enough to make stone laugh. “What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Crowley threw his hands up — causing Aziraphale to yelp and _demand_ he put them back on the steering wheel. “I’m not suggesting anything! Why do you think I’m trying to get into bed with you?!”

“Well, you’re a _demon_ , isn’t tempting the holy and doing — _things_ like that what you do?”[[15]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589363230372265984/unknown.png)

“I dunno,” he said. “Maybe other demons. Not me though. Can’t be bothered, really. Not really something I’ve—” he waved a hand, “ _partaken in_.”

“Oh.” It almost hurt how surprised he sounded.

As they pulled up in front of the building, Aziraphale stared up at its darkened windows as if he were afraid; afraid the building might lean over and devour him, perhaps. He had never been much for modernism.

“Just wait ‘til you see the inside,” Crowley said as he came past him.

 

Somewhere between the pavement and the elevator their hands found one another.

By the time they got to the door of Crowley’s flat, their fingers were interlaced and their shoulders kept touching. They were silent.

Crowley snapped his fingers and the door swung obediently open. He strolled into the living room, the angel hanging on the end of his arm. He paused on the threshold, as if he were afraid to enter the domain of a demon.

He looked back at him and smiled. “Come on then,” he said. “You’re not going to light on fire.”

He came in, looking around with wide, curious eyes. “It’s so… empty,” he whispered.

Of course, he was used to the clutter of the bookshop. This place must have reminded him of Heaven.

Crowley shrugged. “I don’t have much stuff,” he said. “Drink?”

“Alright.”

Reluctantly, he withdrew from Aziraphale’s grasp and went to the alcohol cabinet in the kitchen. He poured the two of them a glass and handed it over to the angel. He wandered along the walls, inspecting the artworks Crowley had hanging up.

“I never took you for a collector,” he said.

“I’m not, really. I just take things when I fancy them.”[[16]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589363365122408468/unknown.png)

The angel glanced down the hallway and gasped, laying a scandalized hand on his breast pocket. “Almighty preserve us,” he whispered, as if on instinct. “Crowley, what is that?”

He followed his gaze. “Oh that? It’s just a statue. My good pal Michaelangelo did it for me.”

“What _exactly_ is it meant to be representing?”

“Evil triumphing over good, _obviously_.”

Aziraphale sniffed doubtfully.

 

They had a few drinks. They started off at opposite ends of the couch, but as the night wore on, they found themselves closing the gap without even realizing it. And by the time two A.M. had rolled around, they were wrapped up together; legs resting atop legs, arms around shoulders, laughs mingling as they joked with one another.

A quiet moment, following a silly but somewhat depressing story of Crowley’s, indicated that the night was coming to an end.

Only, Crowley didn’t want it to end. He didn’t _want_ Aziraphale to leave. He didn’t want to be left all alone in his empty, cold apartment with his plants and his paintings and his loneliness.

Crowley’s head was resting atop Aziraphale’s when he requested, quietly, “Stay the night with me, angel.”

Aziraphale pulled away and looked up at him.

He had taken his glasses off at some point earlier, and now he couldn’t help but feel exposed with his angel staring into these eyes he despised so much.

For a single, heartbreaking moment, he thought he would be rejected. Again.

“Of course, my dear,” he finally said.

It was almost an instinct. One moment, Crowley was staring at Aziraphale’s star-speckled face, and the next their lips were together, and it felt almost like his cold blood ran warm for the first time since his Fall.[[17]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/342936663254892545/589363591132610578/unknown.png)

Hands magnetized to faces, to hips, to hair, and Crowley lost all sense of time and space; the only thing he was aware of was him and his angel.

When they pulled away, Aziraphale wouldn’t let him go, not completely. He leaned their foreheads together, eyes shut as Crowley stroked his temple.

“Let’s go to bed,” he whispered.

“Yes. I quite think I would like that.”

They stood and for the first time in his existence, the demon Crowley slept long and peacefully, wrapped in the arms of someone he knew he loved unconditionally.

 

_Your heart is consecrated ground,_

_darling._

_Your love is a place I cannot go._

_I burn my feet,_

_blood full_

_Of pain_

_Because I cannot_

_run away._

* * *

[1] Over the years Crowley had found himself experimenting with the gender expression of the humans. As for the “physical” body he occupied most of the time, he tended to change _that_ to suit whatever was most convenient. Penises tended to get in the way, in his opinion, as did breasts. So he had happily scrapped them, along with many of the other trappings that came with a “human” body. Overall, he was rather pleased with the result.

He had had many pronouns over the years, but this was largely attributed to the fact that he had existed within many different cultures with many different languages and rules for gendered pronouns. He knew he _technically_ had the choice, especially later in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but he didn’t really see any need. It all seemed like a bit of a hassle, anyway, and he liked the way “he” and “him” sounded, so he didn’t really see much reason to change it.

[2]He kept the outdated old thing for two reasons. One was as a souvenir to the time of dial-up internet and answering machines. The other was because it was the only thing Aziraphale called him on. It took the poor bastard a hundred and fifty years to learn how to use it, and adamantly refused to try and learn mobiles. He had had a horrible old flip-phone that he _regularly_ lost, and so the landline in the bookshop was the angel’s main form of communication. He had committed Crowley’s landline number to memory but, for whatever reason, insisted that he couldn’t memorize another one, and refused to keep an address book purely for that.

[3]Of course, Crowley had felt nervousness before. It was almost a constant fixation in the existence of a demon. Aziraphale, however, had never really made him nervous. Which explained why he was apparently completely losing his mind.

[4]It wasn’t necessarily that they _couldn’t_. Since demons weren’t programmed to feel love anyway, it wasn’t that the Almighty, or Satan, or whoever it was that had been responsible had actually physically forbidden it. It, along with any other sweet, affectionate, or sentimental words, were quite like allergies in a way: the more one is exposed to an allergen, the less severe the reaction becomes. The first time Crowley had referred to Aziraphale as his friend, for instance, had given him an ear-splitting migraine and had driven him to sleep for ten years. As of writing this, Crowley had not actually said the words “I love you” to Aziraphale. His reasons for this are two-fold: one, because he didn’t want to go through the trouble of the initial reaction. The second is because he was deathly afraid of what the response might be.

[5]There had been an almost unusal drop in temperature the past few days; Crowley contributed it to Heaven, taking out their anger on the humans after being thoroughly spanked by an eleven-year-old and two incompetent immortal beings.

[6]Crowley, between the two of them, was really the wine aficionado. While Aziraphale enjoyed wine, he didn’t quite have the taste for it, preferring food to alcohol. Of course, he did enjoy his fine spirits, but presented with the choice, he might be more inclined to choose a nice malt scotch or bourbon than a glass of wine.

[7]In this way, he quite resembled a snake, lounging about in the sun and stretching itself between branches. Crowley wasn’t even aware of most of his snake-like mannerisms. They were natural to him, after all.

[8]Crowley had always hated his eyes. He could look human in every way but that. They were a constant reminder, whenever he looked in the mirror, of what he was, what he had become. Golden little pinpoints of his self-loathing. If he could change them, he would, but it was his marker, and he could change it no more than Hastur could hide that ugly frog on his head. All he could do was cover it up.

[9]This was how he felt every time he and Aziraphale got into a spat, of any size. In case it wasn’t obvious, Crowley was wont to overreact on occasion.

[10]It should be noted here that Crowley was not, in fact, as cool as he thought he was, if it wasn’t already obvious.

[11]Crowley had invented being fashionably late.

[12]Aziraphale had invented being nervously early.

[13]Crowley has been known to occasionally waffle between emotions rather quickly. But it’s generally best not to mention this, as he is rather sensitive to that sort of thing.

[14]It wasn’t like Crowley was actually offering sex. While he wasn’t necessarily _opposed_ to the idea, it had never been something he enjoyed. He had had sex twice in his life. Once around the fall of Rome out of curiosity (he didn’t enjoy it), and a second time in the early twentieth century to make sure he _really_ didn’t like it (he doesn’t). He had decided, solidly, that sex just wasn’t something he was all that interested in. Would he be interested in one day perhaps having sex with Aziraphale? Maybe. If so, it would be for intimacy’s sake rather than for any sort of sexual need.

[15]It should be noted here that, while it might seem to the outside eye that Aziraphale is frightened at the idea of having sex at all because he is an angel and sex is something angels are generally understood not to do, this is not the reason for his reaction. In fact, Heaven doesn’t really have an opinion about sex of any kind, so long as it’s conensual on all sides. All those Bible passages you were read as a child were taken horribly out of context and translated poorly by horny monks who had the “if I can’t have it, no one can have it” mentality. Aziraphale, personally, just doesn’t like sex. While he likes Crowley, this is a new establishment, and any more nuanced opinion on fucking Crowley would take time to develop.

[16]He would never admit it, but most of the objects in the flat had some sort of sentimental value — most of them connected to Aziraphale.

[17]Angels are warm to the touch, you see. Crowley, being a cold-blooded creature, was particularly cool. While for some this might not be entirely pleasant, Crowley would describe it as stepping into a bath that was just a little bit too hot, or August sun on the back of your neck. Warm, but pleasant at the end.


End file.
